Budget legislation passed by Congress last week includes cuts to some welfare programs, like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The cuts have already attracted backlash from left wing activist groups like the feminist group UltraViolet, which launched a campaign to petition Congress to restore the funding. “Overnight, the U.S. Senate voted for a budget that literally takes food away from hungry children,” UltraViolet’s campaign pleads. “The budgets that have now passed both the House and Senate make deep, painful cuts to the food stamps program.” TurningPoint USA responded with a little digging. Here’s what they found: After a brief...

“Primarily you are looking at taxpayers’ dollars that provide EBT cards, that are ultimately buying drugs,” said Sheriff Deryl Loar, of the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office in Florida. Electronic Benefit Transfer cards (EBT) allow individuals receiving government benefits such as food stamps to charge products to the government when they shop. The Indian River County Sheriff’s Office tells WPEC-TV that career criminal Anthony Wheeler is not the first accused drug dealer found taking payment for drugs with taxpayer-funded electronic benefit cards. …

Taxpayers fund food benefits for the poorest families among us. Tonight, CBS12 investigates why those food stamp cards are becoming a common currency for purchasing illegal drug deals. The Indian River County Sheriff's Office says career criminal Anthony Wheeler, 44, is not the first accused drug dealer detectives found taking payment for drugs with taxpayer-funded electronic benefit cards. But the Sheriff says the abuse of the benefit cards seems to be getting worse, and the cards are too easily transferable from person to person. "Primarily you are looking at taxpayers’ dollars that provide EBT cards, that are ultimately buying drugs,"...

Republican senators want to restrict products that may be purchased with Electronic Benefit Transfer cards used in state aid programs for the poor and disabled. Under Senate Bill 169, recipients would be banned from using the cards or cash drawn on the cards to purchase alcohol, tobacco, lottery tickets, firearms, or for adult entertainment, gambling, tattooing and body piercing. A similar bill passed the Senate last year, but was killed by the House which instead studied the issue. The result, House Bill 219, which restricts using the cards at locations such as smoke shops, tattoo parlors or marijuana dispensaries. State...

With a grocery bills priced as high as $1,300 per month as of late, some American workers simply cannot afford all of their groceries on top of everything else they already have to buy. This is why the government offers food stamps. The USDA Food and Nutrition Service reports that as of September 2014, there were around 46.5 million individual food stamp recipients (22.7 million households) receiving an average benefit of $123.74 each (around $257 per household).

DENVER — Public tax money very likely paid for welfare recipients to smoke the equivalent of about 17 pounds of weed (or approximately 9,000 joints) in 2014. Compared with what the rest of Colorado ingested, that’s a small percentage, but controversial none the less. ... the Colorado Department of Human Services calls the “Quest” Electronic Benefit Transfer Card under its Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Cash Assistance program. This account is not meant to be used for food, rather “a family’s most basic needs.” It’s essentially a bank debit card, loaded up with from $200 to $1,000 in cash every...

The number of beneficiaries who receive compensation from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), otherwise known as food stamps, has topped 46,000,000 for 37 straight months, according to data released by the Department of Agriculture (USDA). In September 2014, which is the latest data from the USDA, there were 46,459,998 Americans who received assistance from the SNAP program. The number of beneficiaries has exceeded 46 million since September 2011, a total of 37 months, or more than three years. [snip]Households on food stamps in September got an average of $252.69 during the month, and the program benefits cost taxpayers $5,748,809,023....

MADISON, Wis. — Some of the boldest reforms to public assistance in the nation may arise from the Wisconsin Legislature in coming months. Armed with the largest Assembly majority in 57 years and comfortable control of the state Senate, Republican leadership appears to be putting together the kind of ambitious reform agenda that could rival 2011, when the Republican-led majority introduced and passed a spate of conservative — and controversial — initiatives. On Tuesday, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, announced the creation of the Public Benefit Reform Committee. While the new committee’s chair or its members have yet to be...

Facebook post: Selling my leftover food stamps for this month, black Friday just killed my bank account. Interested? Message me." (Reply: "Just saying...you do know that this is a pretty public page and you can get stripped of your benefits if the state gets wind of this?") Rep. Shauna O'Connell is on the Howie Carr show now; probably not much can be done to the woman who posed the question.

Two men affiliated with the New Black Panther Party allegedly planned to murder Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson and St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch and bomb the Gateway Arch. In an undercover police sting, the two bought a pipe bomb, and intended to buy two more but couldn’t afford it until one man’s girlfriend’s Electronic Benefit Transfer card was refilled, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. Brandon Orlando Baldwin and Olajuwon Ali Davis, who go by the names Brandon Muhammad and Ali, were indicted last week on weapons charges when Baldwin purchased two hi-point .45-caliber pistols intended for someone...

ST. LOUIS • Two men indicted last week on federal weapons charges allegedly had plans to bomb the Gateway Arch — and to kill St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch and Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson — the Post-Dispatch has learned. Sources close to the investigation were uncertain whether the men had the capability to carry out the plans, although the two allegedly did buy what they thought was a pipe bomb in an undercover law enforcement sting.

Under President ObamaÂ’s new program to protect millions of illegal immigrants from deportation, many of those affected will be eligible to receive Social Security, Medicare and a wide array of other federal benefits, a White House official said Tuesday. In his speech Thursday night, the president touted his plan as a means of bringing accountability to a broken immigration system, under which 11â€‰million or more people are estimated to be living in this country illegally. Â“WeÂ’re going to offer the following deal: If youÂ’ve with been in America more than five years. If you have children who are American citizens...

Gov. Paul LePage’s administration is facing a potential loss of federal funding to administer its food stamp program over concerns about state’s decision to put photos on cards used to access the benefits. Federal officials said in a letter to the Maine Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday that recipients are being given information that makes it seem like they’re required to have their photos placed electronic benefit transfer cards, even though the program is voluntary. The Republican governor’s administration must make it clear to recipients that their decision to not have their photo placed on the card...

The federal committee charged with creating nutrition guidelines for Americans is calling for fat interventions at workplaces.During a presentation at the sixth meeting of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) on Friday, the committee said government needs to take “bold action” to fight obesity.The solutions included “comprehensive” obesity interventions in “health care, the community, public health facilities, and work sites.”“The public should monitor body weight and engage with providers in evidence-based approaches aimed at achieving and maintaining healthy body weight,” the panel said in a presentation on “Food and Nutrient Intakes, and Health.”The committee, which is responsible for creating...

Not that the timing makes it any more egregious, but six days after being named the 17th richest member of Congress, it’s being reported that U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson‘s estranged wife has been issued an EBT card to help feed his children. Lolita Grayson was approved for public assistance by the state of Florida, and their four minor children — they have five children altogether — are also enrolled in the free lunch program in Orange County schools, according to ABC affiliate WFTV. The stay-at-home mom was asked if she ever thought she’d be on food stamps. “No,” Lolita responded....

Barely a week after being named the 17th richest member of Congress, liberal firebrand and Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson is refusing to support his estranged wife and their kids, and his wife has turned to government food stamps to support her family, WFTV 9 Orlando reports. Grayson’s marriage of 29 years dissolved earlier this year when his wife, Lolita Grayson, filed for divorce. A week later, Rep. Grayson asked a court to annul the marriage on the basis of bigamy.Mr. Grayson is refusing to support his family because he is claiming that she was never divorced from her first husband...

Taxpayers are apparently buying welfare recipients booze and cigarettes for the road — at times a very exotic road. A Watchdog.org analysis of a Colorado Department of Human Services welfare ATM withdrawals database shows that $3.8 million was withdrawn by Colorado welfare recipients outside the state in the past two years. There were withdrawals at out-of-state liquor stores and tobacco outlets, as well as vacation destinations like Hawaii, Las Vegas and even the Virgin Islands. ... Colorado welfare withdrawals at liquor stores and casinos despite federal and state law banning such actions and welfare recipients taking out money at the...

It's about a 4 per cent increase between the benefit increase and the increased expense deduction. Heard about this increase and searched 'Bing News' and Google News' and found nothing. Finally found this Pa. state welfare site that mentions it.

(strong language warning) There’s a time and a place for everything and for these two News 12 The Bronx anchors, they picked the wrong time and definitely the wrong place to vent personal opinions that were destined to generate some controversy. TV Spy reports: Yesterday morning at around 8:25 a.m., News 12 The Bronx anchors Amy Yensi and Matt Pieper were caught in an open-mic moment. The pair were about to report on the need for school crossing guards in certain areas, when they made the following off-the-cuff comments on air.

We know the welfare state is good news for people inside government. Lots of bureaucrats are required, after all, to oversee a plethora of redistribution programs. Walter Williams refers to these paper pushers as poverty pimps, and thereÂ’s even a ranking showing which states have the greatest number of these folks who profit by creating dependency.But does anybody else benefit from welfare programs?Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation explains in the Washington Times that the War on Poverty certainly hasnÂ’t been a success for taxpayers or poor people. Instead, itÂ’s created a costly web of dependency. This year marks the...

Shop now if you depend on food stamps or cash assistance from New York. Neither will work starting early Sunday morning. The system will go down at midnight and isn't expected to come back online until noon Sunday. It's being shut down so the state can switch to a new company to run the program. It will take at least 12 hours to do the switch. Medicaid benefits are on the same card, but they will not be affected by the change. Nearly a third of the city's residents rely on food stamps, according to U.S. Census data. Toni Maxwell,...

In June 2014, there were 46,496,145 recipients of the food stamp program, which is enough to fill the Yankee Stadium 925 times, according to data from the Department of Agriculture (USDA). The Yankee Stadium is equipped to hold 50,291 persons, meaning that the 46,496,145 Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients in June 2014 could fill the stadium 925 times. The number of recipients was up 270,999 since the previous month in May 2014 when there were 46,225,146 individuals participating in the program. Similarly, the number of households participating in the SNAP program has increased as well from the 22,590,393 participating...

BERNE - A 21st-century Albany County initiative that combines farmers markets with online shopping is receiving extra funds to continue growth. State Sens. Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Paul Tonko announced Wednesday that FarmieMarket Online LLC, based in the town of Berne, is receiving $24,490 in federal funding. The SNAP’s monthly electronic benefit transfers (EBT) dollars, which 95,000 individuals and their families in the Capital Region currently receive, cannot be used in many online food stores, but only at authorized retail food stores. The new program will allow EBT users to order fresh food online with the benefit...

Fifty years after the “war on poverty” was first waged, there are signs a new offensive is needed. Newly released Census data reveals nearly 110 million Americans – more than one-third of the country – are receiving government assistance of some kind. The number counts people receiving what are known as “means-tested” federal benefits, or subsidies based on income. This includes welfare programs ranging from food stamps to subsidized housing to the program most commonly referred to as “welfare,” Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. At the end of 2012, according to the stats, 51.5 million were on food stamps, while...

Published August 22, 2014 FoxNews.com Americans receiving food stamps were caught selling and bartering their benefits online for art, housing and cash, according to a new federal report that investigates fraud in the nation’s largest nutrition support program. Complicating the situation is the fact states around the country are having trouble tracking and prosecuting the crimes because their enforcement budgets have been slashed despite the rapidly-rising number of food stamp recipients, according to the Government Accountability Office report. Under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, 47 million people have been awarded $76 billion in benefits. State agencies are responsible...

Should the public know how much money Wal-Mart, or that convenience store down the street, takes in through the federal food stamp program? Or does that amount to a retail trade secret? Those are the questions at the heart of a request for public comment announced Monday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which runs the food stamp program. Here’s the background: Last year we spent $76 billion tax payer dollars on the food stamp program (officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP). That money goes to about 47 million low-income Americans, who use it to buy...

Maine’s Republican governor wants all able-bodied recipients of the federal food stamp benefit to complete work or volunteer activities. Gov. Paul LePage announced Wednesday that Maine will no longer seek a federal waiver that allows some able-bodied adults to receive food stamps without working or volunteering. “We must continue to do all that we can to eliminate generational poverty and get people back to work,” LePage said in a statement announcing the change. “We must protect our limited resources for those who are truly in need and who are doing all they can to be self-sufficient.” According to the Maine...

MIAMI, Florida—once again is getting a hefty bonus from the feds “saving” taxpayer’s money. This year, the state’s Department of Children and Families managed to misspent only $47,829,887 in food stamp benefits. That’s out of almost $6 billion the state received from the federal government. Nevertheless, Florida’s error rate of .81 percent the second lowest in the nation, and only a slight dip from the previous year when the state received $8 million for having the lowest in the nation at 0.7 percent. Vermont had the highest waste rate at 9.66 percent, while the national average was 3.2 percent. “We...

Bay State EBT card carriers spent nearly $50 million in welfare cash out of the state last year — including destinations as far away as the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, officials said yesterday. A total of nearly 27,000 welfare recipients used their state benefits elsewhere between July 2013, and this past April, the Department of Transitional Assistance reported. The DTA reported 2,741 food stamp accounts were shut off in the past year after the recipients spent more than 90 days out of state. Another 246 cash assistance accounts were also closed during the same time period after recipients lived...

The nation has seen an increasing trend among lawmakers, particularly those on the left, in utilizing the state to drive our consumer choices. Generally, these have come from punitive measures. In addition to added regulations on food producers, they have struck directly at the consumer, in the form of "sin taxes" on sodas and other foods high in sugar and cholesterol in an "altruistic" attempt to persuade Americans to eat healthier. While I tend to disagree with these tactics and believe that the usage of state power to drive our consumer choices is a form of tyranny, I do believe...

The Department of Agriculture has warned of sticker shock facing home chefs on the eve of the Memorial Day holiday weekend, the unofficial start of the U.S. summer grilling season. The agency said conditions in California could have "large and lasting effects on U.S. fruit, vegetable, dairy and egg prices," as the most populous U.S. state struggles through what officials are calling a catastrophic drought. The consumer price index (CPI) for U.S. beef and veal is up almost 10 percent so far in 2014, reflecting the fastest increase in retail beef prices since the end of 2003. Prices, even after...

American Dependency (And The 3rd Day Of The Month Effect) Tyler Durden 05/13/2014 16:51 -0400 Submitted by Rory of The Daily Coin via Jim Quinn's Burning Platform blog. Having noted America's surging government dependence before, the impact of almost 50 million people on food stamps is hard to imagine if you are not in retail food. The spike in business beginning on the 3rd of each month is truly astounding. By the 10th of the month the business begins to normalize and by the 22nd the ship is sinking. When there is a holiday in the month we experience a...

NH State Rep. Timothy Horrigan Regardless of political affiliation, you may want to sit down for this story. In opposition to a bill banning the use of EBT cards to buy guns, a Democratic lawmaker in New Hampshire argued that the legislation is “a blatant violation of the Second Amendment,” saying people receiving public assistance should be allowed to use cash benefits to purchase firearms. Yes, you read that correctly. “The firearms ban is a blatant violation of the Second Amendment,” Democratic state Rep. Timothy Horrigan said Wednesday on the state house floor. “Cash benefit recipients presumably have the same...

Aslam Khawaja, 48, of Iranistan Avenue, the owner of the SK Grocery at 856 Fairfield Ave., was charged Wednesday with first-degree larceny by defrauding a public community, a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison. From March through December 2013 Khawaja paid cash to 128 of his customers who are on the state's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for their SNAP benefits at 50 cents to a dollar of benefit, the arrest affidavit states. ... Khawaja is a Pakistani national. In December he was shot during a robbery at his store and at that time asked detectives to file...

People participating in the food stamp program outnumbered the women who worked full-time, year-round in the United States in 2012, according to data from the Department of Agriculture and the Census Bureau. In the average month of 2012, according to the Department of Agriculture, there were 46,609,000 people participating in the food stamp program (formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). That contrasts with the 44,059,000 women who worked full-time, year-round in 2012, according to the Census Bureau’s report on Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States. For each woman who worked full-time, year-round in 2012,...

From Matt Bracken: In response to recent articles in mainstream military journals discussing the use of the U.S. Army to quell insurrections on American soil, I offer an alternate vision of the future. Instead of a small town in the South as the flash point, picture instead a score of U.S. cities in the thrall of riots greater than those experienced in Los Angeles in 1965 (Watts), multiple cities in 1968 (MLK assassination), and Los Angeles again in 1992 (Rodney King). New Yorkers can imagine the 1977 blackout looting or the 1991 Crown Heights disturbance. (snip) What if a cascading...

It´s a quiet crisis. In a city of plenty, a staggering number of people are struggling to feed themselves and their families. Nearly one in five New Yorkers, 1.4 million people, now rely on a patchwork network of 1,000 food pantries and soup kitchens across the city to eat. That represents an increase of 200,000 people in five years — straining the charities that are trying to help. The two biggest, City Harvest and the Food Bank for New York City, now provide nearly 110 million pounds of food to soup kitchens and food pantries a year. Yet those working

Three people were charged Wednesday in connection to an extensive welfare fraud scheme. The scheme involved using EBT cards to purchase products in the Twin Cities and then ship them overseas for sale in Africa. According to the Ramsey County Attorney's Office, 39-year-old Noni Shanita Snider of Eden Prairie was charged with one count of wrongfully obtaining public assistance and one count conspiracy to commit a felony; 38-year-old Walter Carr Cooper of Plymouth was charged with one count of wrongfully obtaining public assistance and one count conspiracy to commit a felony; and 40-year-old Nyla Jean Newburgh of Minneapolis was charged...

Flashback December 10, 2013: In Close Inspection of Alleged "Draconian" Cuts in Food Stamp Program I noted Mother Jones, the Nation, and the Daily Koz whined about "draconian" cuts in the food stamp program. Close scrutiny showed the "draconian" cuts amounted to $4 billion in a close to $80 billion program. I further commented I actually doubt we will ever see those "cuts" in the first place. Flashback January 29, 2014: Disgusting Compromise on $956B Farm Bill; In Spite of Massive Howls, No Actual Cuts in Food Stamps. Proving that neither party really wants to do anything about escalating costs...

Sunday, March 02, 2014 The Coming Collapse of the Welfare State Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog In 1935, the year that FDR signed the Social Security Act into law, the birth rate was 18.7 per 1,000. In 1940, when the first monthly check was issued, it had gone up to 19.4. By 1954, when Disability had been added, the birth rate at the heart of the Baby Boom stood at 25.3. In a nation of 163 million people, 4 million babies were being born each year. By 1965, when Medicare was plugged in, the birth rate...

The long-tortured farm bill cleared Congress Tuesday, ending a two year struggle that split the old farm-food coalition as never before and dramatized the growing isolation of agriculture and rural America in an ever more urban House. Written off as dead just months ago, the giant five-year measure won final approval from the Senate on a 68-32 roll call and goes next to President Barack Obama for his signature.

… The bill will cost nearly a trillion dollars over ten years. But, considering the bill itself is 702 pages long, the bill will cost about $1.4 billion per page. If that doesn’t garner the attention of taxpayers, there was something else that bothered at least one member of the House today—how settling on cutting $8 billion of waste could be a called “compromise” between a $40 billion House cut and a $4 billion Senate cut. …

Members of Congress have been alerted that a deal on the $1 trillion farm bill, stalled for the last three years, could come on Monday, allowing for a House floor vote next week. The alert went out from the House Agriculture Committee to members of the farm bill conference committee requesting that they return to town by Monday for action on the stalled legislation. "Conversations are ongoing and we remain optimistic that we can reach agreement in time to be on the floor next week," the alert stated. It said that Monday could feature a conference meeting to vote on...

TAUNTON — A Granite Street woman was charged with drug trafficking Thursday afternoon after police said they recovered nearly 19 grams of heroin stuffed into her bra. Police said 37-year-old Kelly Jean Gagnon also had 13 Massachusetts EBT food stamp cards and 13 Suboxone pills, which are prescribed to counter heroin addition, stashed away in her first-floor apartment at 11 Granite St. Taunton detectives, and at least one Drug Enforcement Administration agent, confiscated the drugs and other items during the execution of a search warrant. Electronic Benefits Transfer cards are commonly used by drug users and dealers in lieu of...

Above: A bodega in Los Angeles which caters to illegal immigrants- The more than $1 trillion federal appropriations measure passed today in the House does not eliminate a controversial program initiated by the Department of Agriculture and with the assistance of the Mexican government that promotes food stamps through outreach and advertising to illegal immigrants living in and coming into the United States.In fact, it only “strongly” encourages the Department of Agricultural to stop the program, according to the explanatory statement offered by House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers. Rogers worked out the arrangement with Senate counterpart Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) in consultations...

You just got on welfare, what do you want to do now? Go to Disney World. Itâ€™s cold out in Maine, but itâ€™s really warm in Florida, just like back home in Somalia. Leave the polar vortex behind and catch some rays, withdraw some cash and enjoy the good life.Working people are paying for it. According to Department of Health and Human Service records, cash welfare users from Maine have spent $2.8 million outside of the state over the last three years Â– and not just in neighboring New Hampshire.According to HHS records, the top recipients of MaineÂ’s welfare...

Maine’s welfare money that was intended to be spent on necessities like food is instead being used for lavish vacations in Hawaii and Florida by some of its recipients. Department of Health and Human Service records shows that $2.8 million have been spent by welfare users outside of the state. Although half of this amount was spent in neighboring New Hampshire, some questionable uses of EBT money include a $500 EBT card withdrawal at a Disney World resort in August 2011. Maine welfare recipients also used EBT money in Florida included withdrawals at the Kennedy Space Center in Orlando and...